[mike]

With due apologies to all readers and Spielberg... I've been wanting to ask this for a long time but haven't gotten around to it.

We're planning on glass tiling over an entire wall of painted drywall above base cabinets in our kitchen (which is still in progress). The wife and I'd thought it would be okay to tile directly over the drywall since we've seen it done on HGTV. We're okay and fairly confident with that decision.

However, we're also wanting to glass tile at least one of our bathrooms. The wall in question is an outer wall above the side of a shower/bathtub. The wall is plaster over concrete block. We learned earlier during some demolition in the area that was removed to add the new kitchen and porch that these concrete blocks are very, VERY dense and hard unlike modern concrete blocks which are flimsy by comparision. Anyhow, would it be a bad idea to tile directly onto the surface of the wall - that is, without first applying cementboard?

Also, the other walls surrounding the tub are more of the same plaster only over stucco... apparently one of the previous owners did stucco work and all the additions he did were stucco with or without a smooth plaster coat... , I digress, would it likewise be a bad idea to tile over plaster walls directly?

Thanks!
mike

[NBeth]

The only surface I can comment on is the painted drywall. We tiled over hardibacker and painted drywall: I think the thinset was easier to get truly thin over the painted drywall, but it also tended to come right back off the wall! (and the paint is flat). Once on and set, however, it seems fine. We're only a month in, but I can't imagine why that would matter. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is screwing into the walls with anything else: I've had drywall *pop* under those circumstances. We'll be adding shelves so we'll screw with care...

Have you ever tiled glass before? Are you using mosaic tiles? We were rank amateurs at tiling when we started and this was about the hardest possible way to begin! I will warn you that glass does not like to stick--it's slippery! There's a great temptation to use more thinset in order to make it stick, but this will backfire, possibly spectacularly. We resorted to bluetaping sections to the wall above, which helped a little, but not a lot.

It's also possible that ordering special expensive thinset would have helped. We used latex modified thinset per specs, but it came from HD. We haven't grouted yet and I may still redo a few areas, but we will be settling for a less than perfect application. The tiles are still gorgeous (pictures soon, I hope) and we hope people see those and not the mistakes! Best of luck,

NB

[woodswell]

For the shower/bath I would look for something like the Schluter Kerdi - a waterproofing membrane. You can find it at Home Depot and according to the instructions it is fairly easy to install as long as you do not have a lot of corners.